I am. Im tired of it. Perhaps a republucan president would fix some of it. But the thought of carson or trump winning makes me cringe. Im tired of slacktivism and the daily social media and twitter campaigns. Im tired of people being offended over the color of a starbucks cup, and im tired of the US pop. In general. People being offended by this stuff is offensive to me. Grow some skin people. With the tradgedies and horrors going on in the world the things that trend and are fought against are halloween costumes and cups, good lord

Exactly. This was mainly an issue in liberals, but now conservative Christians are starting to jump on the "offended" bandwagon and use it to their advantage.

Where did this come from? It's like all of a sudden there is now this notion that you can't respectfully disagree with someone else without vilifying them. This is one of the dangers of this radicalized PC that is so rampant nowadays, and it's a really dangerous precedent to set for the future.

Two on-point posts in a row Jpot.

I went to a VERY liberal private school here in Mass. And even in the early 2000's I don't recall the "offended" bandwagon and PC police state. This seems to have come out of nowhere.

Logged

The Nets will finish with the worst record and the Celtics will end up with the 4th pick.

First, no one's free speech was violated. The First Amendment prohibits the making of a law to inhibit free speech. It doesn't matter who funded the school, it was not a First Amendment violation. The Mizzou incident, however, may be considered assault, depending on the interpretation (IANAL.). The students had the right to assemble, not to go after the reporter.

I consider the Bill of Rights to be sacred. I don't necessarily agree with all the interpretations of it, but it forms the basis for a civilized society. Among those ten amendments, I consider the First to be the most significant (followed closely by 4-6). We are not a society that censors. If students want to assemble and protest, they have every right to do so. But that journalist has a right to be there.

I am a Penn grad and was at the school during the "water buffalo" incident:

To say that it was embarrassing is an understatement. It was humiliating that a top liberal arts school not only "prosecuted" a student because they didn't like what he said but also that he faced such a kangaroo court. If he hadn't had Alan Kors, one of the top professors at the university, to defend him, I don't know what would have happened.

Side note: The student involved ran for student government the next year by plastering the ridiculous letter that the administration had sent him all over campus. He won.

I don't like a lot of what people say. I've listened (and responded to) antisemitic, racist, homophobic etc. speech. I find it hateful. But I would never deny anyone the right to make that speech. I'm a liberal Jew. Did I like the fact that the KKK could march in Skokie? Absolutely not. Did the ACLU do the right thing by defending them? Absolutely. The best thing that Skokie could do would be to rally citizens against the hateful speech and show the numbers of those who opposed the KKK.

Oh, on Israel, since that seems to be where we've gone: I'm a strong supporter of Israel, but when I hear things like people saying that criticism of Israel (or any other country) shouldn't be allowed, I get very, very nervous.

Bottom Line: Speech is powerful, but our right to use it is even greater. And it's shameful that a new wave of censorship is coming from universities. Those students should be out there protesting to maintain their rights, not shut them down.

In any case, to those of you who have made it this far, thank you for reading.

The war on Halloween concerns me about as much as the war on Christmas.

Super easy to tell minority students they should "just look away," or else take on the responsibility of confronting their peers in the majority. How would it feel to be one of those students, I imagine?

I'm guessing the Yale official has no idea what it's like for a black student at a historically white university to see peers walking around in black face. Or how it must feel to see an official at that school, an official who is supposedly tasked with making those students feel at home, tell them, basically, to "deal with it"?

I certainly don't know what that's like.

Do you?

You just became my favorite person on this entire board. I need to figure out how to give TPs so I can give them all to you

people standing up for themselves in the face of discrimination is not "soft," as you previously wrote. so why are you so sensitive about it? do you sympathize with the people they are protesting? the protesters are toughing it out just the way they should be. they have every right to push back.and i don't see why it bothers you that the protesters are bothered by other people who are bothered by them.just accept it, it's not going to change.

I'm not speaking to the Missouri protest specifically. I'm talking in general how everyone seems to walk on egg shells when it comes to offending people - witness the Starbucks thing as yet another example or any typical day on Facebook when everyone's offended by something. I agree, accepting others opinions and right to express themselves is key. It just seems to me that too many seem to be fine with free speech - as long as its the 'right' free speech. The MO students who protested have every right to express themselves. And anyone who disagrees with their position has a right to express disagreement without being labeled racists by the pc crowd.

The only personal position I have - without knowing the backstory - is I find it real curious that it toppled a school president. I'd love to know whether this was the tip of the iceberg involving this pres - or a stand-alone incident.

Yes. John Kasich said in the Republican debate "no more publicly criticizing Israel." I am a Jew. That was a chilling moment in the debate.

The one thing Americans cannot do is criticize Israel. Even if you're Jewish, you're still labeled an antisemite. It is having a trickling effect on all free speech, particularly American foreign policy, which is the sector of American politics primarily bankrupting the American people.

Few extreme viewpoints bother me, and frankly scare me in the dogmatism they inspire, than Zionism.

I often wonder when it will be that we will finally look back on this era and realize that in so staunchly supporting Israel we endorsed and perpetuated a regime not unlike the one in Apartheid-era South Africa.

While I don't think we need to support Israel anymore, they are far from an Apartheid-era South Africa.

Unlike South Africa, many current Arab states are willing and have a longer history of peacefully working with Israel. Iran seems to be the only state who wants them wiped off the map along with some hardcore Sunni sects. Most Arabs and Muslims don't have a real problem with Israel outside of Palestinians and the above mentioned hardliners. More along the lines of our rivalry/hate of the Russians and vice versa but ask most American and Russian citizens and they'll say the same thing as a Muslim or Israeli Jew: it's just politics.**

**From my own experience of questioning many Muslim and Russian friends/coworkers on the subject.

Logged

The Nets will finish with the worst record and the Celtics will end up with the 4th pick.

LOL I don't know how they can change anything when they are the ones crying about it.

TP+. Neocons are the kings of fake outrage. From Reagan era stooges fuming about welfare queens driving brand new Cadillacs to today's Christian Right flipping their lid over a supposed war on Christmas, this has been their stock and trade for years. Get your constituents to worry about irrelevant or in some cases imaginary problems. That way they don't have to deal with any real issues.

Not as many Christians are concerned over those star buck cups as people may think. What Christians do worry about is when high school coaches get fired for saying a prayer after a game.

Because they'd lose it if a Muslim coach wanted to say a prayer after his own game. If a few kids on a mostly Christian football team feel pressured to say a Christian prayer, can they really speak out against it in that context?

Students did join the coach, but it was their decision. No one was pressuring the students to say a prayer. Also, it's almost always atheists that protest in these situations. Most Christians that I know would respect other groups who wanted to pray in public.

The Starbucks thing has to be one of the most asinine things I've read in a while. People are really getting worked up about a [dang] coffee cup? My god. Who gives a [dang].

The Mizzou incident with the journalist getting threatened by the professor was troubling. She looks absolutely awful there. Thought her apology yesterday was pretty empty. If that thing wasn't caught on tape, she wouldn't have been showing any remorse.

Yes. John Kasich said in the Republican debate "no more publicly criticizing Israel." I am a Jew. That was a chilling moment in the debate.

The one thing Americans cannot do is criticize Israel. Even if you're Jewish, you're still labeled an antisemite. It is having a trickling effect on all free speech, particularly American foreign policy, which is the sector of American politics primarily bankrupting the American people.

Few extreme viewpoints bother me, and frankly scare me in the dogmatism they inspire, than Zionism.

I often wonder when it will be that we will finally look back on this era and realize that in so staunchly supporting Israel we endorsed and perpetuated a regime not unlike the one in Apartheid-era South Africa.

While I don't think we need to support Israel anymore, they are far from an Apartheid-era South Africa.

Unlike South Africa, many current Arab states are willing and have a longer history of peacefully working with Israel. Iran seems to be the only state who wants them wiped off the map along with some hardcore Sunni sects. Most Arabs and Muslims don't have a real problem with Israel outside of Palestinians and the above mentioned hardliners. More along the lines of our rivalry/hate of the Russians and vice versa but ask most American and Russian citizens and they'll say the same thing as a Muslim or Israeli Jew: it's just politics.**

**From my own experience of questioning many Muslim and Russian friends/coworkers on the subject.

I really, really don't want to narrow this debate to the Israel-Palestine issue, so this is the last thing I'll say about it, but:

One of the most effect pieces of propaganda sold by Western governments and bought by Western people is that those who label Israel an apartheid state are talking about Israeli Jews and Arabs as a whole. This is not true. The apartheid state exists between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. It's a very important distinction.

Also, perhaps the greatest success of the American war machine is convincing people Iran wants Israel obliterated and as soon as they get the nuke, they'll use it against Israel. 1) if you read the honest translation of Ahmadinejad, he says he wants the Zionist regime wiped "from the pages of history," I believe. Thus, Israel can exist, but its apartheid system cannot. Kinda like most agree that the Nazi regime of Germany should have been destroyed, not that Germany the land and the people should be blown to shreds. 2) if Iran even ever gets a nuke, they'd have to have a death wish to use it against Israel. The whole country would be blasted to another dimension before their own nuke was even stopped. Sorta like how North Korea has a nuke, and probably the world's most mentally insane political leader, but they still haven't tried using it against America. Iran wants a nuke because some pretty belligerent neighboring countries have one.

Cheers to everyone but particularly CelticsBlog mods, who allow us to have these sorts of debates on a regular basis with dangerous potential for a blowup between participants.

I'm much more concerned with corporate and government actions with regards to free speech than that professor, who immediately backed off the next day or so. I agree that her apology statement was stilted.

People get super weird and scary in crowds sometimes. Which in part is why outrage of the day is a thing, crowd mentality.

The Starbucks thing has to be one of the most asinine things I've read in a while. People are really getting worked up about a [dang] coffee cup? My god. Who gives a [dang].

The Mizzou incident with the journalist getting threatened by the professor was troubling. She looks absolutely awful there. Thought her apology yesterday was pretty empty. If that thing wasn't caught on tape, she wouldn't have been showing any remorse.

I feel disappointed that they opted to remove the holiday cheer from their cups, but it's their decision to. The only way I could ever see this as an issue is if a franchise owner was told specifically by Starbucks to remove references to Christmas from their stores. But then again they are representing the brand so it would be hard to back that one also, but I probably would object in that situation.